


Time to Say Goodbye

by Sleepyfaceandsnark



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: (for now) - Freeform, Break Up, Broke It, Canon Compliant, Endgame, Feelings, Fix-It, For some people, Gallavich, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Endgame, for others, one last fic for old time sake, or leave, or my version of it, should i apologize
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 12:13:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17849258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepyfaceandsnark/pseuds/Sleepyfaceandsnark
Summary: "No doubt...Endings are hard, but then again...nothing ever really ends, does it?”― Chuck ShurleyIs it the end of everything? Or the possibility of new beginnings?





	Time to Say Goodbye

_“What do you think? We’re boyfriend and girlfriend here? You’re nothing but a warm mouth to me.”_

_-_

_-_

_“Dont’”_

_“Don’t what?”_

_-_

_-_

_“So this is it? This is you breaking up with me?”_

_-_

_-_

_“Been thinkin about you? You think about me? You gonna wait for me? ....Will you? Wait? Fucking lie if you have to, man. 8 years is a long time.”_

_-_

_-_

 

_“I don’t want your fuckin’ money. I want you to come with me.”_

_-_

_-_

  
  


“What’re you doing?” Ian asks, watching Mickey lightly toss a duffle by the door. Mickey sighs and turns to him. Giving flashbacks of what Ian looked like not too long ago when he told Mickey he’d be crossing the border alone.

 

Mickey would be lying if he said that his heart didn’t drop suddenly at hearing Ian’s question asked in an almost chipper way, knowing what he was about to do. Knowing what he had to do, for the sake of both of them.

 

“I’m,” Mickey starts, and it’s as if he hadn't been practicing this in his solo showers for the past week or whenever it was that he realized.

 

He breathes slowly through his barely parted lips, his hand shaking slightly but enough to notice. He knows Ian can tell he’s uneasy but he doesn’t come over...and maybe that’s part of the problem.

 

“I’m leaving.” Mickey finally gets out and Ian laughs. _Laughs._ Because how could he, Mickey Milkovich, be leaving Ian Gallagher. And yeah to be honest Mickey would probably laugh too if it was suggested to him by anyone else but this was his own realization. The honeymoon faze would be over again soon. It’d be better now then later, it’d hurt worse the more he gets used turning over and Ian being there. It’s be better to do it now then after all the fights, then after they start hating each other.

 

Ian finally sees that Mickey isn’t joking and his eyebrows lower in confusion.

 

“You’re leaving?” He asks.

 

Mickey nods. He readies himself for what he thought of over and over because he deserves the right to explain himself, even if he never got that in return. He’s not bitter about it but it’s just another hit he observed. He’s about to repeat everything he repeated to himself when Ian asks.

 

“How long?”

 

 _God. How long?_ How do you tell the person you love the most that you’re leaving? Not for the weekend, or the week, or a month but for seemingly ...forever?

 

“I’m not…”

 

“You’re leaving...me.” Realization dawn on Ian quickly and it’s not a question. It’s a statement.

 

Mickey breathes in and sighs.  “I can’t keep waking up every fuckin morning in a panic that this is the day you leave me again. I can’t live like that.”

 

“What?” Ian lets out. “I’ve told you.”

 

“I know, I know. But I’ve been told a lot of things only for them to not be true. And I’m not blaming you, I swear, I’m past that. But it happening time and time again, that unsure feeling? The fear? It’s just something we can’t fix.”

 

“Mickey I apo-” Then Ian stops himself. _He didn’t. He never did…_

  


“Look I don’t think you’re evil or anything, ” Mickey laughs. “I’m not going write a sappy ass love song about you. I’m not going to use your name as the villian in a shitty book.”

 

“So when you get a new boyfriend I don’t have to show up as one of the 7 exs he has to defeat?”

 

Mickey gives him a questioned look till he remembers. Ian made him watch that movie a week or so ago, Scott Pilgrim something.

 

They both chuckle lightly. Mickey’s the first to break it and Ian has to remember what was going down.

 

“So this is really it?” Ian questions.

 

Mickey looks down.

 

“I’d be lying if I looked back and said ‘I don’t regret a single thing because I have a ton of regrets. Maybe more regrets then not, but that doesn’t mean that ...what we had wasn’t special. That it didn’t teach me. You made me accept myself. Helped me to grow, and for that Ian Gallagher, I’ll always thank you. And I’ll always fuckin love you in one way or another. But, for the both of us, you have to let us go and for what’s left of my sanity you have to let me be the one do to the job of leaving.”

 

“But I don’t want you to-”

 

“I know. I don’t either but we both know deep down it’s for the best.”

 

“You don’t know that”

 

“I do.” Mickey looks at Ian and smiles. “You’ll be okay.” He says.

 

Ian opens his mouth to offer some sort of interjection but his eyes just stare at Mickey in disbelief. “No…” he says eventually.

 

“You will,” Mickey says more confidently. He gives a small, dry, laugh. “Me on the other hand…”

 

They exchange awkward glaces but Mickey continues on.

 

“It’ll be hard...for me. If I’m honest getting you out of my head isn’t something I’ve been very successful with but…” He stops, catches his breath. “I hope one day I can make my own decisions and choices without hope or insurance it’ll get me back to you in some way. I hope one day I can just...live for me, you know?”

 

Ian nods and he doesn’t object, which Mickey is honestly surprised at. So many of Mickey’s decisions the past few years, no matter how dangerous, were because of or for Ian. Not that he sets the blame on the redhead in front of him it was his own doing, but it’s all the same and all the more reason they can’t be together.

 

“This is really it?” Ian asks. “Us? We’re just going to go through life...never seeing each other. Never knowing what the other is doing?”

 

“8 years,” Mickey says, and a part of him wishes he didn’t.

 

“Huh?”

 

“You were going to leave me like that alone thinking that same thing for 8 years, alone, in jail. You think a Gallagher would’ve come visit me in jail telling me how you are?”

 

“I..”

 

Mickey sighs. “I really didn’t ...Shit I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

 

“No you...You’re right. That’s fair. It’s just that...if I...when you were there. I knew where you were if I wanted to-”

 

“If you wanted to come visit me and see how I was you could hop a train yeah….” Mickey breathes in, his voice gets more quiet. “That wasn’t fuckin’ easy waking up thinking every morning either.”

 

Ian looks down again, “I’m sorry…”

 

Mickey can understand where he’s coming from. I mean god forbid he got out the legal way he’d know where he’d find Ian, or at least one Gallagher that would tell him where he is, but this is different. This is a full cut out of each other’s lives.

 

“Look maybe some time in the distant future after time apart we’ll learn to grow.” He says. “We’ll have spent our time since loving other people and growing because of them...maybe find a way to love ourselves?” He pauses. “Maybe if we meet as different people in whatever future there is and we still have love... it could be stronger. If we’re meant to be, that’s how it’ll go. That’s how it ...has to go. I need to know what my life is like without Ian Gallagher. I need to know who I am.”

 

“I don't want to let you go,” Ian says.

 

“I don’t either...but you have to. For me” Mickey pauses.“I need to know if we’re supposed to be together it not be because of fear or convenience. I want us to be together without destroying each other.”

 

He looks at Ian, Ian’s eyes blurred from tears? Mickey doesn’t know why he’s surprised but he is. Ian bites his lip and nods to Mickey instead of acknowledging the emotion on his face.

 

“We’ll always have Chicago,” Mickey offers. “The places we went, where we hung out, where we did great things and some we...maybe shouldn’t have.” Mickey smiles and Ian offers a small one back.

 

“I don't know how I’m going to deal with never seeing you again. Not knowing where you are.”

 

 _I don’t know how I will either._ Mickey thinks.

 

Ian is looking up now, to the ceiling, trying to avoid letting the tears from his eyes drop down. “I love you.” He says, quietly.

 

It’s three words they’ve only recently been able to say together but it still wasn’t said enough, not nearly enough.

 

Mickey picks up his bag and throws it over his shoulder. “I know,” He says, he walks over to the redhead. He takes Ian’s face and makes the redhead look down to him. “I know,” he says again and he pulls him down for one more kiss. It’s short...maybe too short. But it’s enough.

 

Mickey turns away to the door. “Hey and maybe give my sister a call every once in a while, huh?” He calls back and looks at Ian with a grin.

 

Ian, surprised at this sudden request, stumbles on his words “Uh yeah… I should.”

 

Mickey shrugs. “She just might miss you is all and it’s not fair we should both be without you.”  

 

Ian nods, Mickey noticing his face now fully wet with the tears he fought with earlier.

 

“Goodbye, Gallagher.”

 

“Good-Goodbye, Mick”

 

And with that Mickey closes the door behind him.

 

His ‘I know’ repeats in his head and he thinks, does he really? Does he really know? And again that was part of the problem.

 

He walks forward, knowing if he looked back for even a second he’d take everything back. He’d go back in, find Ian, tell him he was an idiot for saying what he said and that he’s sorry. And maybe they’d be okay. Maybe they’d go through life with minimal damage but that ‘maybe’ wasn’t good enough because maybe still brought waking up in the middle of the night in a panic. “Maybe” still brought doubt. “Maybe” still brought the thought in his head that if things were even slightly different would he even be in love with the man on the other side of the door.

  


* * *

  
_This is the way that we love,_

_Like its forever,_

_Then live the rest of our life,_

_But not together_  


_Someone will love you_

_Someone will love you_

_Someone will love you_

_But someone isn’t me_

  


**Author's Note:**

> It has been an honor serving you dear fandom. 
> 
> This is the end of the line. 
> 
> I'd like to apologize and also thank you for being the fandom that got me into writing fics.  
> And I've met some wonderful (and okay some not so wonderful) people bc of this fandom but it's the wonderful ones that stand way out and I'm so grateful for them. Thank you for giving me a home and something to fixate on for such a long time. I'll always love the gallavich fandom in some way. 
> 
> thanks again.
> 
> Peace :)


End file.
